The study of producing drop-in fuels from agricultural waste through fast pyrolysis and catalytic hydro-processing

For converting biomass into renewable fuel, fast pyrolysis and further upgrading processes have been a promising pathway for years. Catalytic deoxygenation of the oxygenate compounds in the pyrolytic biooil significantly improves the quality of bio-oil and increases the possibilities of directly using that as transportation fuel. In this study, two types of experiment, fluidized bed fast pyrolysis of Miscanthus and hydro-processing of the produced bio-oil, were conducted in sequence. The Miscanthus biomass was first pyrolyzed to produce the bio-oil in a fluidized bed and the oil product was then hydro-processed into upgraded fuel in a fixed bed reactor over Pd/C catalyst with various operating conditions including reaction temperature, reaction pressure, liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV), and H-2-to-oil ratio. The chemical compositions, FTIR spectra and physical/chemical properties of the two products were demonstrated and compared. The degree of deoxygenation (DOD) was additionally presented with varying experimental conditions, showing that the maximum DOD of 95% was obtained. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.